Critical Thinking: Language & Thought

PSYCH 4521-004

Fall 2006
T-Th 2:00-3:15PM -- Muenzinger E432

http://psych.colorado.edu/~colunga/P4521-06

People Course Goals Coursework

fallacy & summary assignments Grading

Other Information Schedule

this week

09/13/06:The fallacy & summary assignments are available now.

Instructor: Eliana Colunga
Office: Muenzinger Room D447-B
Office Phone: 303-492-4282
Email: colunga@psych.colorado.edu
Office Hours: W 12:00-1:00 and by appointment

Instructor:	Eliana Colunga Office: Muenzinger Room D447-B Office Phone: 303-492-4282 Email: `colunga@psych.colorado.edu` Office Hours: W 12:00-1:00 and by appointment

Course Goals

The main goal of this class is to learn about interaction between language and thought. Language is at the core of human activity and human cognition. The nature of the relationship between language and thought has long been subject of study by philosophers, psychologists, linguists, cognitive scientists and others. Are we smartbecause have language or do we have language because we're smart? Does the way we talk influence the way we think? Do people who speak different languages think differently? How about people who speak more than one language? or no language? How about other species? Does language have an impact on issues like sexism and racism? The answers to these questions are controversial, and we will try to make sense of them by using skills of critical thinking. The secondary goal of the class is to practice skills of critical thinking. Being able to critically evalute ideas requires some fundamental skills. Among the skills we will be practicing in this class are:

identify reasons and conclusions
identify and evaluate assumptions
identify and avoid biases
interpret ideas
judge credibility of ideas
draw inferences
test ones inferences and conclusions

Coursework

Participation. This class will follow a graduate seminar model. Most of the class time will involve your participation in discussions and presentations. Your preparation and participation is essential for this format to work. You are expected to read the assigned readings the week they are assigned and to come to class prepared to ask questions and actively participate in discussion. Additionally, there will be an online forum in which we may follow-up discussions or start new ones. Your participation and ideas will be crucial to our evaluation of the ideas in the field.

Discussion Questions. To facilitate discussions and encourage doing the readings, you will email me three discussion questions inspired by the assigned reading by midnight of the day before we are due to discuss it (M/W). These questions may range from somewhat "superficial" questions about the content of the reading to truly "deep" questions about the implications of the reading, integrating other sources from your own life, introspection, experiences, or plain speculation. To help you understand what kind of questions I'm talking about, for the first three weeks I will supply the questions and your job will be to email me the answers by the regular deadline and to be ready to discuss, defend, and perhaps even relinquish your answers in class.

Group Assignments. During the course of the class there will be several group assignments that will have as purpose to integrate or apply what we have discussed so far. Before each of these assignments you will be given a series of questions to think about or exercises to complete in preparation for the group assignment to come. These assignments will be evaluated as a group.

Fallacy and Summary. To keep in mind the issue of critical thinking and to expand our vocabulary, we will begin each class by explaining and discussing common logical fallacies. During the semester, each of you will be responsible for choosing and explaining one common fallacy. You can choose one from wikipedia (this one also has good examples). Soon we will be able to acuse one another of committing the falacy of converse accident or whatnot. (Note: Using obscure terminology is not a sanctioned way of arguing a point in this class, but go ahead and use it at cocktail parties.)

In addition, once during the semester, each of you will be responsible for emailing me a one-paragraph summary of what we discussed in class. At the beginning of the class we will review this summary to enhance our ability to integrate the material discussed from class to class.

Final paper and Presentation. The final paper (8-12 typed, double-spaced pages) and presentation (about 20 minutes) should be on a topic of interest to you that is related to the content of the course. We will discuss this in more detail later in the course. Preparing these papers will require much work, thought and outside research, so you will do well to start early. The following timeline is designed to ensure that you make progress on your paper (4 of the 40 points for the paper will come from simply making each of the 4 deadlines before the final due date) and that you receive feedback on it before turning in the final version.

Deadline	Assignment
Oct. 17	Paper topic
Oct. 31	Outline and references
Nov. 16	Paper draft
Dec. 14	Final paper

The final paper is due on the last day of classes. NOTE: for each day that the final paper is late, 5% will be deducted from your final paper grade.

Grading

The total possible number of points you can earn is:

Participation	10
Discussion Questions	20
Fallacy & Summary	10
Assignments	10
Presentation	10
Final Paper	40
Total	100

Letter grades will be assigned as follows.

A+ = 98-100	B+ = 88-89	C+ = 78-79	D+ = 68-69
A = 92-97	B = 82-87	C = 72-77	D = 62-67
A- = 90-91	B- = 80-81	C- = 70-71	D- = 60-61
			F < 60

Other information

Incompletes

A grade of incomplete will be given only if (1) all completed work is satisfactory (i.e., C- or better) and (2) there is a valid reason that you cannot complete the course. If you would like to be considered for an incomplete, contact me as soon as you know.

Statement about disabilities

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services (DS) early in the semester so that your needs may be addressed. DS determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, http://www.colorado.edu/sacs/disabilityservices).

Academic dishonesty

Students are expected to adhere to the University of Colorado Student Honor Code for every assignment and exam in this class. Honor code information is at http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode

Classroom behavior policy

The information on classroom behavior policy can be found at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/. However, in addition to not being incredibly disruptive and obnoxious in class, I expect you to be on time for class meetings, not read newspapers or magazines in the classroom, not disrupt the class with conversation, interact with fellow students in a respectful manner during class discussions, ask questions when you don't understand the material, and communicate complaints, criticisms and suggestions either personally or anonymously to me.

Schedule

The Issues
Week 1	Aug 29	Introduction Notes
Week 1	Aug 31	Language and thought -- related, how? Premack, 04, Q1
Week 2	Sep 5	Language of Thought Pinker, 94, Q2
Week 2	Sep 7	Language for Thought Boroditsky, in press
Not-so-controversial Language Effects
Week 3	Sep 12	Labeling effects on categorization - adults Goldstone, Lippa, & Shiffrin, 01, Post your questions here.
Week 3	Sep 14	Labeling effects on categorization - babies Xu, 02
Week 4	Sep 19	Verbal mediation Emerson & Miyake, 02
Week 4	Sep 21	Assignment - mechanisms no reading, but answer this for a class activity.
Different languages - Cross-cultural research
Week 5	Sep 26	Space Majid et al, 04
Week 5	Sep 28	Time Borodistky, 01
Week 6	Oct 3	Gender Borodistky, Schmidt & Phillips, 03
Week 6	Oct 5	Assignment: methods no reading, but answer this for a class activity.
More than one language - Bilingualism
Week 7	Oct 10	Bilingual Brains Perani et al, 98
Week 7	Oct 12	Flexibility Bialystok et al, 04
Week 8	Oct 17	Discuss paper topics	Paper topic due
Week 8	Oct 19	Self-construal Marian & Kaushanskaya, 04
Week 9	Oct 24	Education Lesaux & Siegel, 03
Week 9	Oct 26	Assignment: policy Answer this for a class activity.
Any language at all - Special cases
Week 10	Oct 31	Overview Pinker, 94	Outline & refs due
Week 10	Nov 2	Dogs Kaminski et al, 04, Markman & Abelev, 04
Week 11	Nov 7	Chimps Tomasello et al, 03
Week 11	Nov 9	Nicaraguan Sign Language Senghas et al, 05
Week 12	Nov 14	Specific Language Impairment SLI fact sheet
Week 12	Nov 16	Assignment:mechanism/application Late Talkers	Paper Draft due
Week 13	Nov 21-24	Fall/Thanksgiving Break
Week 13	Nov 21-24	Fall/Thanksgiving Break
Putting it all together
Week 14	Nov 28	Language and Society Sexism: A Person Paper on Purity in Language by William Satire (Douglas Hostsadter) Guidelines for the Use of Nonsexist Language, University of New Hampshire
Week 14	Nov 30	Presentations Adam C., Louise, Laura
Week 15	Dec 5	Presentations Adam R., Shawn, Annie
Week 15	Dec 7	Presentations Katherine, Homan, Zach
Week 16	Dec 12	Presentations Sophia, Kristen, Sean, Tyffanie
Week 16	Dec 14	Presentations & Wrap-up Kayvan, Baily, Latoya	Final paper due